The Theme Of Heritage In Everyday Use By Alice Walker

Born in the mid-1950s, Alice Walker lived through a revolutionary age of change during the African-American Civil Rights Movement, lasting from 1954 to1968. Her story Everyday Use includes information about her perspective of this revolution to describe the importance of heritage. In this story, the narrator and her daughter, Dee, have conflicting views on how to appreciate their heritage which eventually results in tension between the two. Through the usage of writing strategies such as personification, Alice Walker’s story highlights how different people can have different interpretations of their heritage that often times result in clashes with one another. One example of a different interpretation of one’s heritage is when Dee discusses the reason why she changed her name from Dee to Wangero. In the story, it states, “‘What happened to “Dee”?’ I

In the story, it states, “‘These are all pieces of dresses Grandma used to wear. She did all this stitching by hand. Imagine!’... ‘Maggie can’t appreciate these quilts!’ she said. ‘She’d probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use.’ ‘I reckon she would,’ I said. ‘God knows I been saving ‘em for long enough with nobody using ‘em. I hope she will!’ (Walker 320). This quote explains how Dee believes she should have the quilts made by her grandmother because her sister would put them to everyday use. Dee believes that the quilts are so valuable to her heritage that they needed to hang the quilts, treating them like foreign objects, in order to appreciate their value. Conversely, the narrator believes that their heritage would be appreciated by using how they were intended to be used, which is why she later decides to give the quilts to Maggie instead of Dee. This creates a very evident conflict between Dee and the narrator as a result of different interpretations of